Possible autism at 16 months

[geekmum123]

Hi all

My little girl has been showing signs of autism from around the age of 9 months old. She is now 16 months old and made very little progress development wise. Here is a list of things that I consider red flags:

• Doesn't wave or point,

-Doesn't bring me toys to look at. She does usually bring them with her to sit on my knee and play, but doesn't involve me with play. -Can only say 'Hi' and 'Dada' but not always in context and not very clearly -Doesn't respond to her name (big one)

She is walking well and has excellent fine motor skills. She can mimic us drawing on a pad of paper, mimic pushing particular buttons on a toy and has good eye contact and loves to laugh with us. She gets 'shy' around strangers and looks to us for reassurance and then smiles and interacts with them. These are positives, but I feel the other issues suggest she may have ASD.

We are starting speech therapy next month and the therapist suggested if she fails to progress then we have to start looking at ASD. She has glue ear also, but the hearing tests came back fine suggesting she can hear speech well.

Does anyone have suggestions for helping her to learn to point and communicate? I am obviously devastated that this is happening but trying to be positive and help her as much as I can.

Hi,

My little boy is 15 months and also showing lots of red flags. He has poor eye contact, no words yet, no waving or pointing and very little joint attention. I'm so worried about him!

After reading lots online I bought the book - Hanen - More than words. It's expensive but it's made me feel so much more positive about by baby's communication and some ways to support it. I'm working on following his lead and playing with him at his level, playing games that he loves like tickles, chase, throwing him and catching him as these are where he communicates best, and setting up situations where he has to communicate to ask for help - putting a lid on his cup that he can't take off himself, putting his dummy in a box that he can't open, putting his toys high up etc.

I would love him to point & wave, it's so hard seeing all of his little friends communicating so well with people around them.

Is it private SALT? Have you spoken to the HV and GP yet? I haven't initiated anything yet as I'm so worried that they will just tell me to go away because he's so young.

Great advice from nocturnalstar, the Hanen book is good and is used as a tool by many parental programmes. Another good book is An early start for your child with autism. Bear in mind that with this type of approach there’s nothing you could do that would be harmful if they do not turn out to have autism but rather a communication delay or similar.

Hopefully the SALT and hearing test means the GP or HV are taking your concerns seriously.

nocturnalstar definitely speak to your HV if you are worried. Give them a list of specific things you are concerned about. You could try looking at the ASQ for his age (ages and stages questionnaire). They do a specific social and emotional questionnaire too that I was given by the HV, though I can’t remember the age range for that - our ds was older than yours, or MCHAT to back up your concerns. These were not particularly helpful in our case - MCHAT result was low risk for example and ds aced the communication part of the regular ASQ despite having social communication issues but they may help support yours.

Another approach is to see if there is a local speech and language drop in clinic that you can visit. Again, be prepared with a list of concerns.

Hello everyone

Thank you so much for the suggestions. They are really helpful. I will certainly get the book you suggested, as I saw this mentioned in another autism post on here.

I initially raised my concerns with the health visitor at the 12 month check-up who then referred her for a hearing test. This resulted in the glue ear diagnosis. The health visitor then referred me to the drop-in speech therapy clinic who signed us up for 'small talk' classes. The speech therapist was encouraged by her interactions with the staff there and told me she wasn't too worried at this stage. However she did say my list of concerns would also be red flags for her, so they will monitor her progress through the classes.

We are now looking to get her referred to the Autism Assessment Centre at our local hospital. They may turn her away due to her age, but I am very keen to get her as much help early on as I can. I'll be doing the referral via my GP.

I agree nocturnalstar it is very hard to see others communicating with their toddlers so well. I'm hoping to reach a stage of acceptance about the situation, but I am stuck at the moment in the 'why is this happening to me?' stage. All we can do is try and help them as much as possible I guess.

Thank you again for the advice. Its lovely to speak to people that are going through the same thing.

Hi there,

Nurturing Neurodiversity has a couple of great videos on her YouTube channel that you might like. Her son (Dexter) is older but I think lots of the tips are good for younger children too.

The first one is engaging through play:

And the second one is a more general discussion of things you can do to help that aren't "therapy":

They are also a very happy and positive family and I recommend all the videos.

If you like YouTube also check out VincentVille: they have 2 boys who I think are both autistic (or maybe one is borderline/not Dx'd yet). Theirs are more diary-style, but I just find them a charming family and enjoy following their progress and adventures.

As your dc are young toddlers check out Walkie Talkie and Chirp, both speech therapists on YouTube, there are probably others. Chirp is very informative with lots of detail, Walkie Talkie has some good videos of her doing therapy with toddlers so you can get some ideas for your own sessions. I think both have videos on autism flags but bear in mind the treatment approach is different in the US. ABA is their go to as well as SALT.

I meant red flags.

I should also credit LightTripper, I get most of my YouTube recommendations from her!

I spend waaaayyyy tooo much time on YouTube. But it's hard to find really good parent channels and I still feel awkward about invasion of the children's privacy (though it's so reassuring to see these happy families engaging with each other!) That's why I like the positive ones so much: it feels so much less conflicting than the ones that show meltdowns and stuff and you just think (Oh God, when that kid grows up that stuff is online for ever). I guess some NT children's parents do it to them too, putting up photos of their tantrums etc. but it feels even less OK when the children are already in a minority and at risk of being marginalised!

Sorry, that was a bit of a detour!

Anyway, I do like those SLT channels. Walkie Talkie posts a lot less than she used to and they are more salesy, so it's worth looking back at her older videos for more useful content. Chirp is really good. She is quite sceptical about ABA and very thoughtful about how to engage children with communication differences. She is also really good at sensory stuff, despite being an SLT rather than an OT.